RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)


  • From America 200 to America 250: A Personal Journey

    Source: Chris’s Substack
    by Chris Matthew Sciabarra

    “My journey from America 200 to America 250 encompassed a fifty-year period of deep losses and incredible triumphs. To have survived two emergency surgeries in October 2025, I count my blessings that I am even here to mark the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of American independence. Quite frankly, given life-long health problems, it was almost inconceivable for 16-year-old Chris to project the possibility of 66-year-old Chris. But these fifty years of living, writing, and thinking about America and its founding document have illuminated a recurring motif in my work. What unites the 16-year-old and the 66-year-old is not merely an appreciation of ideas, but a commitment to understanding how ideas evolve alongside changing contexts.” (07/04/26)

    https://chrismatthewsciabarra.substack.com/p/from-america-200-to-america-250-a

  • The Beauty Of Online Anonymity

    Source: Independent Institute
    by Scott Beyer

    “Social media platforms are full of ‘anon’ accounts these days. Particularly with Elon Musk’s purchase of X (formerly Twitter) and the de-censorship of that platform, many such accounts are dropping explosive ideas—about race, gender, immigration, etc.—from behind the safety of their screens. Some say this is harmful for society—free speech gone too far—while others mock the accounts for being cowardly. But anonymous communication is a time-worn American tradition, providing a useful check to government power while normalizing ideas that needed to be stated and debated all along.” (07/03/26)

    https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/03/the-beauty-of-online-anonymity/

  • The Great American Betrayal

    Source: The Hill
    by John Mac Ghlionn

    “It wasn’t long ago that a losing candidate would give a dignified, mildly depressing concession speech, lick his wounds and try again in four years. That gentleman’s agreement is dead. Now, losing an election is treated as definitive proof of a deep-state conspiracy, while winning is celebrated as a mandate to crush the opposition. Elections in the U.S. now function less as democratic transfers of power and more like weaponized custody disputes. Supercharging this collective psychological break is the tech industry, which realized early on that rage drives engagement far better than nuance. The algorithms don’t want us to get along. Peace is bad for profit margins. Instead, citizens are all trapped in bespoke digital echo chambers designed to confirm their worst fears.” (07/04/26)

    https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/politics/5952390-america-250-years-crisis/

  • Why Jason Watson is Wrong, Even if You Agree With What He Stands For

    Source: Garrison Center
    by Thomas L Knapp

    “No one forced Major Watson to accept an Air Force Commission. That choice — and the choice to be bound by the UCMJ and by DOD directives — was Major Watson’s and Major Watson’s alone. So was the choice to violate the rules he chose, of his own free will, to be bound by. While I’m on record as noticing that the Constitution doesn’t seem to matter much to those who rule us when those rulers find its strictures inconvenient, one of its features does make a good deal of sense for nearly any social or political system. That feature is requiring that civilians control the armed forces rather than vice versa.” (07/04/26)

    https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20724

  • AI and the false consciousness trap

    Source: Unherd
    by Yanis Varoufakis

    “The connection with whether Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or DeepSeek are conscious or not is becoming clear. Just as the account of the evolution of genes as if they were sentient agents (albeit of the Chicago underworld variety) affords them a moral character which they lack, similarly the portrayal of AI bots as conscious entities needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Scientifically speaking, all that goes on is that microscopic perturbations yield macroscopic consequences. Their proliferation, or extinction, is an indirect by-product of that dynamic — nothing more. Causality abounds, but teleology, intent or consciousness do not.” [editor’s note: I suspect the only quality unique to humans may be our denial/fear that anything could possibly be like us; AI is just the current scenario in which many people feel the need to find … or perhaps fantasize … differences – TLK](07/04/26)

    https://archive.is/QZQ67

  • Can We Restore the Principles of 1776?

    Source: Town Hall
    by Mark Lewis

    “The world (at least by choice) is not going back to the horse and buggy age. We live in technologically advanced societies that have given us many wonderful inventions that make our lives far more convenient, if not always simpler. We credit ‘science’ with these advances, and frankly, that is both good and bad. The good, of course, are the medical breakthroughs, etc. that have aided mankind to enjoy this existence longer and more comfortably. We all should rejoice and be thankful for this. But unfortunately, that has led some people, too many people, to elevate science as ‘God’. Thus, 1776, in all ways and thoughts, is ancient, outmoded history, to be abandoned and forgotten …” (07/04/26)

    https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/07/04/can-we-restore-the-principles-of-1776-n2678804

  • Freddy the World Cup Tourist and Tocqueville’s Hopes for America

    Source: EconLog
    by Joy Buchanan

    “In the 1830s, a French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through the United States and returned home with Democracy in America, a penetrating analysis of a society marked by energetic voluntary associations and a restless spirit of enterprise. Tocqueville admired much of what he saw, but his verdict was not uncomplicated. Near the end of the book, he wrote, ‘I feel full of fears and full of hopes.’ Two centuries later, another European visitor is offering a portrait of America. Freddy (@FreddyLA7), a German soccer fan road-tripping across the country for the 2026 World Cup, has become an enthusiastic chronicler of American life. Where Tocqueville wrote volumes about institutions, Freddy posts photographs and exclamations about Buc-ee’s, Waffle House, and enormous houses. He’s also documenting the kindness of strangers.” (07/03/26)

    https://www.econlib.org/econlog/freddy-the-world-cup-tourist

  • Unfinished Republic: What I’m Teaching My Daughter About America’s Founding

    Source: The Daily Economy
    by Laura Williams

    “Americans fall short of our founding ideal that all are created equal. But reformers have fought ever since to fulfill that promise.” (07/03/26)

    https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/unfinished-republic-what-im-teaching-my-daughter-about-americas-founding/

  • The principle of Americanness

    Source: Christian Science Monitor
    by staff

    “Sometimes, the confluence of disparate events unexpectedly illuminates ideas and ideals that have universal and enduring resonance. Three occasions that come to mind this July Fourth, fittingly, revolve around the essential nature of Americanness, of what it is to be American: the weekend celebrations of 250 years of independence, the Supreme Court ruling this week on birthright citizenship, and the annual recognition of ‘Great Immigrants, Great Americans’. The thread of citizen rights and responsibilities weaves through each of these, uniting evolving conceptions of freedom, self-government, and individual achievement from the nation’s past through to its present. In their 1776 Declaration of Independence from British rule, the Founding Fathers claimed for all future Americans the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’.” (07/03/26)

    https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0704/The-principle-of-Americanness

  • Vive la France!

    Source: The Dispatch
    by Kevin D Williamson

    “Congress was in Philadelphia, and Lafayette landed in South Carolina—he was an idealist, not a geographer. But with a letter of recommendation from Ben Franklin in his hand, he made his way up to Philadelphia, where Congress, grateful for the services of an enthusiastic young aristocrat who had the good taste to bring along his own money, commissioned the 19-year-old as a major general. … Lafayette was wounded at Brandywine, endured the hardships of Valley Forge, and was one of the key players when the tide was turned at Yorktown. Lafayette also provided a critical channel between the upstart Americans and the French monarchy, whose financial and naval power were simply indispensable to the project of American independence. No Lafayette, no United States of America. Spit hot contempt at foreign aid all you like: No foreign aid from France, no United States of America.” (07/03/26)

    https://thedispatch.com/article/france-america-history-allies-lafayette/

  • A Semiquincentennial Psalm

    Source: American Greatness
    by Thaddeus G McCotter

    “On the occasion of the Semiquincentennial anniversary of our free republic, many citizens will recognize and celebrate American Exceptionalism, including our nation’s Founders, its seminal documents, history, and undeniable legacy in advancing the cause of human liberty and self-government throughout the world. It is both appropriate and fitting that all this be done during the ‘America 250’ festivities. Still, there will also be indictments of all three from our republic’s current left-leaning malcontents, who often appear unaware of the irony and hypocrisy in their positions. The Left seeks to replace the very U.S. Constitution that protects their God-given right to assemble and voice their views. Further, despite their risible claims to promote ‘democracy’, the Left instead seeks to replace our free republic’s system of self-government with a centralized, elitist rule advancing a secular, identitarian civic religion of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’. Such an outcome is decidedly not ‘progressive’.” (07/04/26)

    https://amgreatness.com/2026/07/04/a-semiquincentennial-psalm/

  • Argue about American values. What could be more American?

    Source: Los Angeles Times
    by Ian Ayres

    “This weekend, to celebrate Independence Day — our outdoor Thanksgiving — families across the country will gather around picnic tables piled with potato salad and sweet corn and, for my family, Midwestern broccoli crunch salad slick with Miracle Whip. But we Americans rarely make room for observances that turn our attention back to the reason we are celebrating. For years, my own family and many others have filled that vacuum by reading the Declaration of Independence aloud, passing a copy with each person reading a sentence before handing it to the next, parents helping younger readers stumble through words like ‘unalienable.’ … On this semiquincentennial, I urge people to do more than read and hear it. We should talk about what it means.” (07/03/26)

    https://archive.is/V7vxs

  • When the Law Kills Your Electric Car Dealership

    Source: Wired
    by Aarian Marshall

    “Dealers who invested in Polestar won’t be able to sell in the US next year after the federal government denied an authorization that would have allowed the company to avoid a Chinese tech ban.” (07/03/26)

    https://archive.is/WVvKK

  • Empire Managers Invent Fake Threats So We Won’t Fight The Real Monsters

    Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
    by Caitlin Johnstone

    “Can’t stop waging wars or the western empire will collapse. So they make up fake threats from dictators and tyrants and take action to stop them. Can’t stop inflating the military budget and circling the planet with more and more war machinery or the military-industrial complex will stop reaping profits. So they tell you to be afraid of Muslims and ‘terrorists’ and Russia and China and take action to protect you from them. … Can’t stop supporting Israeli atrocities or they’ll hamstring their hegemonic agendas in west Asia and make an enemy of the Zionists. So they create a boogie man of ‘antisemitism’ and set up envoys, inquiries and task forces dedicated to stopping it.” (07/04/26)

    https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/07/04/empire-managers-invent-fake-threats-so-we-wont-fight-the-real-monsters/

  • AI and Exams

    Source: David Friedman’s Substack
    by David Friedman

    “The existence of AI, like the earlier problem of students buying papers online, reduces the ability of teachers to test their students but does not eliminate it, is inconvenient but not catastrophic. It makes some kinds of testing more difficult but not impossible; Serrano could have asked students whose midterms were suspiciously good to explain some of their answers and failed any obviously unable to do so. That would have been additional work for him and, judging by the article, not a policy Brown would have endorsed. Unwilling or unable to do that that he can base his future grading on work done in-person and adequately monitored.” (07/03/26)

    https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/ai-and-exams

  • Tax Foreclosures May Be Unconstitutional Takings

    Source: Foundation for Economic Education
    by Rachel Chiu

    “Last week, the Supreme Court held in Pung v. Isabella County that when a home is taken by the government and sold at a tax foreclosure auction, the sale proceeds satisfy the constitutional requirement for ‘just compensation’ to the owner. This unanimous decision appears to be a loss for homeowners and property rights. But the justices stopped short of sanctioning the County’s actions, leaving some of the most important questions for another day.” (07/03/26)

    https://fee.org/articles/tax-foreclosures-may-be-unconstitutional-takings/